Five Ways HR Can Deal With Workplace Harassment

Workplace harassment can take many forms like bullying, discrimination, or outright abuse. An organization’s HR can therefore understand the types of workplace harassment that the employees might go through to handle the situation properly and act accordingly. It also helps prevent workplace harassment in the first place by setting up appropriate policies and training.

Workplace harassment can look like the following:

• Making offensive or uncomfortable jokes or name-calling
• Ridiculing or insults
• Physical assault/threats
• Intimidating or interfering with their work performance
• Inappropriate advances

Anyone can be a victim of harassment in the workplace, irrespective of gender. And similarly, anyone can be a harasser. It can be a supervisor, client, co-worker, or non-employee. As an HR official, if an employee comes to you with any of the above-mentioned complaints, here are some ways to deal with the situation:

Encourage Speaking Up About Workplace Harassment

This is the first and the key step towards acting against workplace harassment. Have a safe and secure channel through which employees can report harassment and take guidance and counseling.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an estimated 75% of individuals who get harassed at work don’t file a complaint. They mostly don’t want to be seen as a victim or fear negative consequences, such as it is backfiring on them. An individual who fears their harasser knowing they’ve filed a complaint against them is less likely to report the incident in the first place. It is, therefore, important for HR to have a channel like SafeSpace for employees to reach out without the fear of being discovered.

With SafeSpace the entire organization gets a channel of communication and resources that are anonymous for employees with our robust service framework and technology. We strive for employee trust and confidence by providing a secure and anonymous space for them to be able to speak up without being apprehensive of retaliation, job safety, not being taken seriously, or lack of due process.

Provide Psychological Safety

Once an individual reaches out to you, ensure that the allegations are responded to immediately. The higher-ups in the organization can be well versed in what actions are expected of them in such a scenario, and they can ensure anonymity until the victim is comfortable sharing their identity. Another step in making the victim feel safe is to offer support and counseling. The organization can have a counseling service offered that employees can go to when in crisis. Ideally, it can be offsite or remote so employees do not feel the stigma of using these resources.

Have Effective Anti-Harassment Policies

Ensure every employee, vendor, and agent in the organization is aware of the anti-harassment policy by adding it to the company handbook and sending regular reminders via training. An anti-harassment policy should include the following:

• A definition of all acts that may be identified as workplace harassment
• A list of appropriate channels (such as SafeSpace) through which individuals can report workplace harassment.
• Consequences and sanctions for harassment or victimization and zero tolerance by the organization for both
• Guidelines on what employees can do if such a situation arises and the support available for them in the form of counseling/coaching etc.

Keep Awareness of Employee Sentiments

HR leadership can keep awareness of employee sentiments by interacting with employees regularly, observing patterns of high turnover for a manager, doing surveys, and watching the issues employees highlight on forums like LinkedIn, Blind, Reddit, Glassdoor, etc.

With all the data, HR can develop effective ways to resolve issues fairly and mitigate the negative sentiments of employees. Those suggestions can be shared with executive leadership for effective policies and reforms to ensure an inclusive and safe workplace with zero tolerance for acts of harassment.

Organize Workplace Harassment Training

To prevent workplace harassment from happening in the first place, HR can organize regular training with a recapping of policies and discuss in detail what may be harassment and the consequences of indulging in such acts. This training can be used as an opportunity to review their complaint procedure and encourage employees to use it.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.